And expanding on what Betty said below, I’m asking out of genuine curiosity the about the opinions when it comes to Republican women and the birth control brouhaha. Short of The Distinguished Ladies From Maine wanting to see “final details” of President Obama’s rule changes to provide contraception coverage through insurance companies, I’ve heard basically nothing from prominent conservative women this week on the GOP’s trip back in time. It’s mind-blowingly obvious as to what I think about the sheer horror of it all, but I’m seriously trying to figure out if it’s deafening silence that implies support (or silent rage), if it’s none of my damned business, or if I’m just completely missing something.
And as Charles Pierce notes, at least one GOP woman candidate is running on the whole thing being nothing more than a First Amendment issue, like the campaign of Sarah Steelman in Missouri.
People living in these states are going to hear, over and over again, on free and paid media, through an entire primary season, that the real issue here is religious liberty and Obamacare. (What Republican candidate is going to come out and argue that it’s an issue of women’s health care? Anyone? Bueller?) This will continue into the general election cycle. By then, this ludicrous position will be set in concrete as a legitimate part of the electoral dialogue. I’m not optimistic at all that enough people will see through it.
JMG
Only should-be Republican (based on age and economic status) woman I know is my Mom. She has voted Libertarian for a decade because of GOP policies related to women.
Maude
If the women think they won’t be hurt by this, then they are for it. Makes them feel all good inside, moral and all that.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
Dirty little secret: Lots of Republican women out there have socialized –even sexualized– the notion of ‘obedience’. I’m sure some percentage will quietly nod in public and vote the other way in private (as they did in Mississippi a few months ago), but not all.
The GOP is essentially now a BDSM cult.
cmorenc
IMHO it’s GOP men who should be nervous about this silence from their GOP women, not progressive men or women.
Steve
There are plenty of women who are Republican operatives and elected officials. If they were eager to defend this stuff, they’d be out there doing it already. The world being what it is, surely someone will step up eventually and volunteer to do some self-hating for profit.
So far the only attempt I’ve heard in this vein was Sarah Palin’s amazing quote that women are smart enough to know contraception is available out there somewhere and they don’t need government to be providin’ it for them. Palin may be the leader of the brigade of shamelessness, but I doubt she’s the only member.
Bobby Thomson
They like power. They’ll put up with anything the party wants to run with.
You didn’t actually believe Snowe and Collins cared about anything other than their own re-elections, did you? They are so scared of Koch Party Republicans at this point, they would vote to abolish the Nineteenth Amendment if the Republican Party wanted to run on it.
22over7
Former congresswoman and current Senate candidate Heather Wilson of New Mexico published a letter in the Albuquerque Journal last week, wholeheartedly endorsing the Catholic bishops’ position and emphatically noting that the argument is NOT about birth control or women’s health, but purely about religious freedom.
So between her and the woman from Missouri, I’m guessing that the GOP women have their marching orders. The question is, will the Dem candidates stand up?
Benjamin Franklin
The Bible counsels women to be subordinate to the man. Submission is an essential quality for masochists.
eric
shoot, this is easy” “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”
Villago Delenda Est
@Steve:
Just this.
I think a lot of Republican women are stewing right now, and not in a good way for McConnell and Blount.
PIGL
And when they start burning witches at the stake, and individual states mandate brightly coloured stars to be worn by minority religions, to go along with the state-mandated rape, will people speak up then? Or will there be polite, respectful mumblings about religious freedoms and states rights?
I’m going with column B. There is no limit to the depravity that can and will excepted as legitimate in American public life.
General Stuck
I think most folks are just so stunned by the republicans apparent breakdown from political reality, no one really can articulate what is happening. And I suspect quite a few republicans that aren’t completely nuts, including many of their women, are in the same boat of bewilderment.
Was just watching the Senate this morning’s bidness speeches, and Sen Grassely was delivering one of the most petty whining butthurt diatribes of ‘the hypocrisy’ of Barack Obama, that could be imagined. They have nothing if the economy improves in a steady way, and it is, or seems to be.
The pressures of an upcoming monumental election is cracking their wingnut heads wide open, into a fire drill of gibberish and free associative pining for the past politicking. And it will only get much worse as the election nears. Anything can happen, and may well. I want an Obama presidential PopeMobile for his protection, at the very least.
biz5th
Isn’t the Republican arguement (it’s religious freedom, not contraception) analogous to saying the Civil War was about states rights and not slavery?
Xenos
going a bit off-topic, but the whole VA rape-a-sound thread is dead – has anybody run across any analysis as to whether that law is constitutional, as it seems tailor-made to violate the undue burden standard in Casey v. Planned Parenthood?
AliceBlue
I’m with Charlie Pierce in wondering where the hell the doctors and the AMA are.
jibeaux
@22over7: They keep saying that, but I don’t think that dog is going to hunt. It’s not like it’s a coincidence that every issue of religious freedom in the health care arena happens to revolve around women’s reproduction, and you just can’t carve it out as neatly as they’d like.
Villago Delenda Est
@AliceBlue:
The AMA is busy counting money somewhere.
burnspbesq
@Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor:
The BDSM Cult’s lawyers would like a word with you. Something about slander, they said.
Maus
Waiting to be told their opinion.
Or really, shutting up because this is more about abortion than it is contraception.
Face
@AliceBlue: They’re too busy making themselves richer. Cant have a public stance when said stance may alienate some of the donor pool.
All about the Benjis, bitchez.
Waynski
What I’ve heard from Republican women, and I know a few, is crickets. However, that doesn’t surprise me. I don’t believe it’s a subject they’re comfortable discussing in general and certainly not with a man, and as a man it’s not something I feel comfortable throwing out at them. But my guess is they’re counting on liberal women to sweep the issue away for them. I think women of all political persuasions are going to have to call them out on this, gently and with respect, and make them see the light, because I think they just want the whole problem to go away on its own and have an unreasonable certainty that it will, but if they don’t stand up (and they may not without pressure), Pierce may have a powerful point.
Guster
@burnspbesq: Ha. Yeah, if only the GOP respected a safe word.
“No contraception for you, slut!” **whipcrack!**
“Orange juice!”
“Oh. Sure. Here’s your pill, then. Need some ointment? A glass of wine?”
Someguy
While we have the churches on their heels, this would be a good time for HHS to insert mandatory abortion coverage in the HHS rules. Stupak is gone. So’s the rest of the “gang of three.” So any promises made to them are non-binding. The Republicans have grabbed a losing issue. If the WH had any balls whatsoever, they’d go all in for the win and tell the bishops to stick it. This is the issue we can use to permanently pry women out of the Republican Party.
It has nothing to do with the First Amendment or freedom of religion. It has everything to do with the christers’ right wing opposition to everything this president does and with the Republicans’ insane and deluded attempts to oppress women and put them back in their place.
RossInDetroit
Once there could have been public debate about this but the gulf between parties has become so wide that the only communication across it is by shouting. Those of us who shun the hollering matches have long ago given up discussing political issues with our opposite party friends and family.
Maus
@AliceBlue:
Sitting on their goddamned asses being useless, too afraid of being called “Soshulists” by the conservatives who have no fucking clue what this discussion is about. Because seriously, that’s all I’m seeing in comments sections with mixed posting.
Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity
Conservative women in my area have no idea what is going on, same as the liberal women.
My wife had no idea about any of this until I told her about the hearing yesterday, and she’s pretty well informed.
It’s not on any of the mainstream news, and I think the GOP is pretty happy about that.
geg6
@cmorenc:
THIS.
SBJules
I don’t talk politics with my clients unless they bring it up and even then I try to be non-commital. I have a tax client who is a Republican. She has always been pro-choice. Last year she told me that she was really uncomfortable with the way the party was going. Then she & her husband left on a 6 month cruise.
Guster
@Waynski: Republicans who depend on Medicare hate government programs. I suspect that Republicans with uteri won’t have a problem with The US Department of Raising the Cross of Liberty In Your Vagina.
It’s a _cross_. Which do you hate more, Jesus or liberty?
Brazilian Rascal
Let me offer the perspective of a country where abortion is illegal. Here, most conservative-minded women don’t give a crap if it’s legal or not, and if ocntraception algo got banned, they’d still not break a sweat: they know they’d be able to obtain it, with most of society keeping it hush-hush, just like abortions.
Best of both worlds. You get your way -and- also retain the moral thrill of scolding the lessers!
Xenos
@Someguy: That feels like overplaying even a strong hand, as the public is pretty clueless about the regulatory process and this could be sold as a dictatorial power grab. No need to risk the initiative in a battle already mostly won, especially when the Barnicle caucus would love an excuse to turn this against the White House.
geg6
@Someguy:
I sure hope this is snark, because if it is not (and I do appreciate your support for a woman’s right to choose, don’t get me wrong), this might be the stupidest comment I’ve ever seen on BJ, barring trolls.
Brandon
Just another example of Charles Pierce knowing shit about politics. His cultural criticism is first rate. His political punditry, not so much.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
@burnspbesq:
@Guster:
“Aspirin!”
Villago Delenda Est
@Someguy:
Well, it does have something to do with freedom of religion, but in a way the Founders very obviously never intended. No one ever said that others could impose their religion on you…that’s what the Establishment Clause is all about. Yet here we are, some 223 years into the current republic, with a bunch of yahoos insisting that “freedom of religion” means that others can dictate to you your health care based on their religious tenets. It’s really rather bizarre, in that the red beanie brigade wants to use the power of the state essentially to ram their dogma down everyone else’s throat.
But the real issue, as Kay points out in the previous thread, is gutting the ACA because, well, it’s political death for the GOP, basically. The ACA will create millions of new loyal Democratic voters, and this of course is bad for Rethuglicans. They’re running out of options due to their decision to embrace the fears of a group that is in demographic decline and they can read the handwriting on the wall, if only by sounding out the words.
geg6
@Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity:
Totally not true. It led the CBS Evening News last evening and the CBS Early Show (or whatever it’s called now) this morning. They also covered it on the local news here.
shortstop
No one in her family seems to be able to locate it on their own. She and Todd shotgunned their weddin’ and their two oldest haven’t managed to avoid unplanned pregnancies. If Willow makes it through high school without getting knocked up, I’ll be amazed.
shortstop
@AliceBlue: The AMA will always, always stand with the GOP — professional ethics be damned; there are issues of remuneration to be considered!
However, there are many doctors (a number of whom I count among my friends) who aren’t particularly happy with the AMA. We need to hear from them.
Lee
@Xenos:
I just found out Texas law is the same. It survived its first challenge. I assume it will eventually get appealed all the way to SCOTUS.
Martin
I’ve only talked to three reliably Republican voting women about it. One broke into a rant even before I even finished the question about how it was the stupidest, most backward thing she could imagine the Republicans doing. She’s a Catholic, by the way. The 2nd is a pretty devout Protestant, votes (supposedly) entirely based on how her husband (ex Marine) votes, which is A-Z GOP ticket, and is pretty frightened by this turn of events – she pays much closer attention to politics than her husband realizes. I know she voted for Obama even though her husband insisted that McCain earned the presidency by being a POW. I expect this will put her solidly in Obama’s column again without her husbands knowledge. The third is my mom, who refuses to talk to me about it, which means that she is so througly embarrassed by the GOP on it, that she can’t muster any real defense at all. She and I are actually of similar thought on how health insurance should be structured, and she disagrees that birth control should be covered ‘in theory’, but in practice she thinks it should be covered given the system we actually have. I already headed her off on the ‘in theory’ defense as part of my question, so that meant she had nothing left.
My mom has an elementary school age granddaughter, and the other two women have daughters of about the same same age. So wherever everyone is in their family planning years, they all have a vested interest in the subject through offspring. Also worth noting, all are pro-choice.
I have my aunt still to ask who is devout Catholic, so that should be fun. And a friend who is devout Mormon (who may simply be too embarrassed to talk about birth control with anyone). All of the other GOP curious women I know thought the SGK thing was unbelievably stupid, so I’m pretty sure I know where they stand on this. I think all are solidly in Obama’s corner already. My teatard neighbor was foreclosed on and has moved, so I can’t go over and stir shit up with them any more – that too would have been fun.
Someguy
@geg6:
Why is it stupid? I guess I should have said “independent and women who aren’t part of the base.” My point is this is a good opportunity to show how comprehensively anti-women and theocratic the Republicans and church men are. There were three anti-abortion democrats in the House. They are all gone now, thankfully, and the one in the Senate (Casey) can be counted on to vote the right way when needed. Sure, it’d be a bit of a gamble, but mommies decide elections, and with 80% of the mommies in the workforce, the last thing they want or need is a second minivan full of kids. When the other guys are on the ropes, that’s the time for a knockout punch. Tie the threat to contraceptive rights to abortion, and abortion will come along as a rider in the fight the Republicans simply can’t win politically. What, you think that people are going to stand for the elimination of contraceptives just because we tie them to abortion?
Of course the other tack here is to wait until after the election, count on Obama getting back in, and then include abortion coverage in the HHS regs for employers at that time. You’re gambling on that too though, and need to think about a possible Republican future where Planned Parenthood gets defunded and insurance companies (now governed by federal reg) could potentially be prohibited from pyaing for abortions.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
This quite frankly terrifies me. The Republicans are going to chant “Obama = religious oppression” with the cult-like devotion to message discipline that is their special forte from now until November. The MSM will echo it all, because the one thing they want more than GOP rule is a close horse race and if the economy keeps improving this kulturkampf is the only mealticket they have left. ConservaDems will cave or run for cover thus reinforcing the GOP message. And swing voters won’t pay attention to any of the details which might disrupt the master narrative, and so it goes.
bemused
I would not be surprised if there are women, wives, daughters in Republican men’s lives who have some secrets they haven’t shared with them whether it’s contraceptive use or abortion. Republican are using contraceptives and no-choice families have made exceptions on abortion for their teenage daughters (then go back to protesting at abortion clinics) or for their wives (Karen Santorum). IOKIYAR
Waynski
@Guster: Agreed on the bible thumpers, but they’re not all like that. Most Republican women I know are Republicans on the issue of taxation and government spending, but I live in the Northeast. The pushback may well have to come from the less religiously affiliated Republican women, but they are out there (as in exist, not crazy).
Ed Drone
@burnspbesq:
Yes, they asked for MORE! MORE! MORE!
Ed
Steve
@shortstop: “No one in her family seems to be able to locate it on their own.” Spit-take.
Amir Khalid
@Brazilian Rascal:
When conventional mores contradict common sense and practicality, the result often looks like hypocrisy. But a “conservative” society like yours (and, in many ways, my own in Malaysia as well) this enforced hypocrisy keeps the necessary confrontation from ever happening. And so conventional mores never have to make way for common sense and practicality.
dr. luba
@shortstop: The AMA represents the interests of most doctors about as much as the Chamber of Commerce represents the interests of small businesses. IIRC, fewer than 20% of American doctors are actually members, and the percentage is shrinking every year. A large part of their membership is old, white, male and retired.
When the ACA was being debated, the AMA came out against. The membership revolted, and many quit. The AMA changed its position.
The docs I know (OBs) are aghast at what’s going on. I know of none who would vote for any of the Rs for president. But we’re just ordinary citizens, not right wing religious zealots, and many of us are woman, so the powers that be don’t care what we think. Nor Rep. Issa, nor the media.
batgirl
Let them make it an argument about religious freedom/liberty! The exemption that the GOP is pushing is an infringement on my religious liberty as an employee to not be forced to obey the religious strictures of my employer!
El Tiburon
Trying to preven their husbands from getting blown by dudes in public restrooms.
Also, Ann Coulter does not even have a vagina.
Villago Delenda Est
@Martin:
Dang, another Marine who is doing his darnedest to reinforce the negative stereotype of the Jarhead. What McCain did after his tour in Hanoi disqualified him for an executive job; he couldn’t handle a command position, which is why he left the Navy without getting a star or two.
Martin
@Someguy:
When your opposition is drowning, don’t give them something new to grab onto. Abortion would shift a lot of these people that the GOP is losing on this issue back into their column. The charge that this is an issue of religious freedom would get bolstered, and the Dems would find themselves on defense in a day.
After the election, maybe, but you really need public opinion to move on the topic before you can do that. And the mandatory coverage opens up a whole new debate – many parts of the country have virtually no place to go for that procedure. So a mandate for coverage is going to morph into a mandate to provide care, and even though we think that too should happen, that’s going to be a hell of a fight.
shortstop
@dr. luba: The AMA’s influence is quite outsized. I wish more of you would speak up — loudly!
OT, what’s Rih’s big campaign announcement coming at 2 p.m. eastern?
Chris
@Martin:
Back when the Mississippi abortion amendment got shot down, someone here posted something to the effect that “a lot of Christian women, once in the voting booth and away from the watchful eye of their pastors and husbands, voted to protect their and their daughters’ interests.” Sounds like we’ll be seeing a lot more of that here.
(And how stupid are those pastors and husbands? Seriously. “Honey, you’re not going to vote for those awful pro-woman things, are you?” What do you think she’s going to vote for, you dumb motherfucker? Or have you not noticed she’s a woman?)
p
I don’t know that this is such a winner with GOP women as implied. “They can pay for it themselves, this is a matter of religious liberty” will do the trick for them.
Rafer Janders
@Martin:
I know she voted for Obama even though her husband insisted that McCain earned the presidency by being a POW.
Somehow I doubt her husband also insisted that Kerry earned the presidency by being a decorated combat veteran, unlike, say, George aWol Bush.
Bruce S
I don’t think the issue is so much how it plays with self-identified “Conservative” or partisan GOP women. The issue is “independent” and “moderate” women who swing both ways, as it were. Those are the votes in play and this crap will not sit well with them. I think that, given the crickets that almost always are heard when Dems think that Snowe or Collins might show some spine on an issue, worrying over Republican women is a lost cause. Souls have been sold. Brains have been deadened. Truth is a stranger to them. It’s the dues you pay to that party. Among the GOP voter base, though, there are women who aren’t especially political who will probably be shifting farther and farther away. My sister went through that during the Bush years largely over the Iraq war and choice, but it takes time to make the leap and actually vote for the Democrat. She voted reluctantly for Kerry and enthusiastically for Obama after being a Republican all of her life.
Martin
@Villago Delenda Est: I don’t hold his position against the Marines. For all the GOPs bluster about ‘meritocracy’, they’re always the first to go to social promotion due to an overbuilt notion of fairness. It’s easier than actually evaluating people and holding them accountable.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
So, what is the best response to “It’s not about contraceptions, it’s about religious freedom”? I’ve so far come up with “Your religious freedom stops at her body” but I don’t think that goes far enough.
ppcli
@biz5th: The claim that “it’s about religious freedom and conscience, not birth control” is transparently specious, and must be met head on. Basic fact:
a) The US has always allowed for religious freedom of conscience in a huge range of matters, and there is absolutely no chance that this will stop in any of our lifetimes. Conscientious and religious objections to the draft, blanket exemptions to the Amish for a range of tax laws, exemptions from drug laws for the use of peyote in genuine religious rituals, Quakers allowed to make “affirmations” rather than oaths, to cite just four of hundreds of obvious examples.
b) The US has also always restricted this blanket right. Religious peyote takers may be legally fired from their jobs for taking peyote. (Employment Division v. Smith 1990) Mormon subsects that practice the traditional polygamy are prohibited from doing so. Two cite just two from hundreds of obvious examples.
The principle is absolutely clear and settled, nobody disputes it: for a huge range of cases religious liberty is conceded, and there is a strong presumption in its favor. But it is not absolute – in some cases it is limited.
So sorry, Issa panel of old men telling women how they should make decisions concerning whether or not to bear a child: it’s not about religious freedom, it’s about contraception. Period. Face it. Live with it.
FormerSwingVoter
@Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity:
This this this this this. MOST PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA THIS IS HAPPENING BECAUSE THE MEDIA WILL NOT REPORT ON IT. They’re reporting on Obama’s “assault on religious freedom” or “contraceptives controversy”, but I haven’t seen the text of the bill allowing ANY employers to demand that their employees never have sex even mentioned once in a mainstream traditional news source of any kind.
Martin
@Rafer Janders:
Actually, he was really torn there. He supported Iraq which ultimately kept him behind Bush, but he always referred to Kerry as the ‘better man’, and the swift boating really enraged him – and I’ve never seen him angry at any other time. Had it been Bush/Kerry in 2000, I’m almost positive he would have gone for Kerry as he was lukewarm about Bush in 2000. He sees himself as a Republican so there’s a much higher standard for a Dem to get his vote, but I think he would have done that.
Villago Delenda Est
@Martin:
Oh, I understand that quite well, and don’t hold it against you. I’m a big fan of Marines in general, for an Army guy. I knew a few Marine officers who were not only outstanding warriors, they were stand up human beings as well.
But this guy is just like this troll we had over at Powder Blue Satan who seemed to have as his life’s mission reinforcing every negative Texas A&M stereotype out there. “We are TOO shitheaded shitkickers!”
amk
@Martin:
This
Why touch the cultural third rail willingly when the opposition is bent on electrocuting itself ?
jibeaux
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): That that’s correct, in the same way it wasn’t about owning people, it was about the state’s right to let you own people?
Martin
@Chris:
She’s not A woman. She’s HIS woman, or she’s one of HIS congregation. When you hear the possessive, that’s always a tell.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
The GOP wants the power to make health care decisions to belong to your boss, not to you and your family. Do you really want the Pointy-Haired Boss from Dilbert deciding what health care you can get based on whatever silly ideas are rolling around inside his empty skull this week? If you are lucky you may think this doesn’t affect you now, but what if your company merges with another company with different managers, or your current boss is replaced by somebody different?
FormerSwingVoter
Oh, so maybe I should answer the actual question being posted. I know one Republican woman who is a devout Catholic – she agrees with Democrats on almost everything, but has been indoctrinated by the Church to feel crippling guilt and shame at the very idea of voting for anyone who is pro-choice. So she’s a single-issue voter who votes for Republicans all the time and then complains about all of the things they do.
She had “concerns” about the mandate, but feels that the President’s compromise is perfect.
S. cerevisiae
@batgirl:
Exactly. This is the way to frame the argument if they go there with it.
nominus
You’re forgetting a few things about the conservatives:
1. Lack of depth. This issue gets summed up as Church Vs Obama, and they’re not going to investigate it further than that.
2. Spite, of the noseless-face variety. This is “fuck Obama, no matter what”, and if there’s just a slight chance that this will doom the smarty pants overspending nanny staters, then it doesn’t matter what it costs.
These used to be my people, and now that I’m on the outside I’m amazed at how shallow they can be, and how they don’t believe any possible consequence is going to happen unless it’s a potential consequence that they don’t like, then it’s dead certain to happen.
Maus
@Chris:
“It’s not pro-woman, it’s anti-woman, because it encourages women to be tarts!”
You assume that anything can’t be rationalized, compartmentalized, and made into a talking point.
Martin
@Villago Delenda Est: He’s actually a bit of a conundrum to me. He’s the most change-adverse person I’ve ever met. He reminds me more of the Amish men I knew more than anything else. You’d never, ever pick him out as a Marine to meet him – he meets none of the stereotype other than he runs 3 miles every morning before work and is never, ever, late for anything ever.
Maus
@nominus:
Yup. Every argument so far seen is “It’s about FREEDOM OF RELIGION NOT SOCHULSM”
Reality doesn’t factor in over willful ignorance.
Rafer Janders
@Martin:
So, basically, he’s a hypocrite. Sure, he came up with a fancy way to rationalize his hypocrisy, but his “the vote should go to the better man, to the combat veteran” didn’t survive contact with reality when it came to the 2004 election.
The reason he voted for McCain over Obama had nothing, nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that McCain was a PoW. It was because McCain was a Republican, same as Bush. He should just admit that, but he can’t, because he wants to think of himself as somehow nobler than that.
shortstop
@FormerSwingVoter: She sounds like a smart, emotionally healthy, well-adjusted individual who is really enjoyable to be around.
shortstop
@Rafer Janders: Remember red state mike? Same deal. But EXACTLY.
Villago Delenda Est
@Martin:
Marines who can’t adapt to change are, just about by definition, dead Marines.
Bruce S
“My teatard neighbor was foreclosed on and has moved”
Just goes to show that sometimes the “free market” actually does produce optimum results.
Rafer Janders
@shortstop:
Yep. I sometimes wonder what happened to him. I’m sure he must have snapped by now. Dude was strung that tight.
Larkspur
@Waynski:
I think there’s a lot to this, and not just on this issue. When I was a kid, we lived on a dead-end street. Beyond that was a field of weeds and grass, and then the railroad tracks. We used to run like hell to get to the embankment whenever we heard a train approaching. We’d get right up there. I remember thinking, “Jeepers, wouldn’t it be awful if the train fell off the tracks, ’cause we’d get squashed like bugs”. But then I would think, “Nope, it’s okay. If it was really dangerous, they wouldn’t let us get so close.”
I thought about this a lot during Bush II, like a whole administration was running wild, certain that someone would clean up after them. Tactically, it must feel exhilarating, but strategically it’s a train wreck.
elm
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I’d just contradict them. Insist and emphasize that it is exactly about contraception. There’s no need or reason to give an inch on that.
On this subject, the left has good politics and good policy going for it, I think simple rhetoric will work best.
Chris
@Martin:
Yeah, you’re right. It’s just the assumption that because she’s “his” woman by right, she must not have a brain of moral system or opinions of her own that boggles my mind. Even if you think women are somehow less than fully human – sweet Jesus, cats and dogs disobey their owners all the time. Does it never occur to them that “their” woman might do the same?
amk
@Rafer Janders: yup. Typical case of having the cake and eating it too.
FlipYrWhig
@ThatLeftTurnInABQ: Yup. It’s the strangest definition of “religious freedom” I’ve ever heard. The freedom of employers to meddle in their employees’ medical decisions? Nobody believes in that.
Waynski
@Martin: This. And PS Someguy, the Republicans are not on the ropes, they’re only entering the arena, robe still on, gloves in the air, to the cheers of the faithful. We may well knock them out, but not by throwing hay-makers.
RossInDetroit
One conservative woman that I know takes birth control pills for a medical condition, paid for by health insurance. But I think she broke with the GOP over the GWOT and started throwing away her vote on Libertarians as a protest. No way would she vote GOP again if they even look like they’re going to go after health insurance coverage of The Pill. I’m certain of that.
Maus
@Chris:
Why could this not be their own moral system or opinions?
It’s certainly not the first Republican to act against their interests.
Besides, again, this is an attempt to allow conservatives to yank abortion costs from being funded by insurance. With that, all is forgiven.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@elm: Your right. Don’t let them change the subject. Thanks.
Chris
@Maus:
Good point.
Rafer Janders
@amk:
If you don’t follow your principles at all times, even when they lead you to do something you’d otherwise not want to, then guess what: you don’t have principles — you have preferences.
JScott
I’m old enough to remember the occasions when Republican women (not to be confused with Republican politicians who are women) have put the GOP out on the couch. In no case did anyone see it coming until it happened. Because that’s how they roll. Up with this sh!t they do not put.
AxelFoley
Where the
whiteRepublican women at?Maus
@JScott:
How long before Lee Atwater?
RossInDetroit
An observation on women voting independently of their husbands in the privacy of the booth: If she decides to buck him and vote for her own interests then she has to admit that he’s wrong. That can be difficult thing to admit to yourself if you have a strong dependency on authority. Once you see the church or husband as fallible a psychological crutch is weakened. It may be easier to tell yourself that the man is right and vote the way he tells you to.
It was a similar situation with the WMDs in Iraq. All the objective evidence said they were a fiction but many people wouldn’t accept that the President would screw up that badly because then they’d have to doubt a whole lot of other things. Many still won’t.
Maus
@RossInDetroit: Right, this is very important. Cognitive dissonance and compartmentalization is why, unless they snap and break from it all, this could certainly get glossed over and rewired as “Obama attacking Churches”. It gets them through the day, and allows them to keep their worldview intact.
makewi
On the one hand the cost of contraceptive prescriptions without insurance is in the $20-$50 a month range, so not exactly a bank breaker. On the other you have a long standing constitutionally protected history of religious organizations not being subjected to government intrusion in areas with absence of a compelling state interest. You can try to argue about a compelling state interest to save women $20-$50 a month, but most people will see it for what it is.
So yeah, there’s a reason this is going to come down as a first amendment issue and not a “woman’s health” issue.
Mnemosyne
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
My question would be, “What about the employee’s religious freedom? Do you really think that your employer should be allowed to dictate what church you attend just because they pay your salary?”
Xenos
@JScott:
What occasions do you have in mind? The gender gap in 1992 was pretty brutal for G H W Bush, who was known as “every woman’s first husband” – uptight, petty, controlling, and bitter if he did not get his way. Men did not see him that way at all.
Mnemosyne
@makewi:
It is absolutely a First Amendment issue when my employer forces their religious beliefs on me.
I’m assuming that if Beth Israel hospital dictated that all of their employees had to keep kosher on the worksite (no mixing of fibers, no non-kosher foods in the employees’ offices), you would be perfectly fine with that, right? Because telling that employer that they’re not allowed to dictate religion to their employees is an infringement on the employer’s religious freedom.
And if your employer was a Mormon who did a daily check to make sure you were wearing your temple garment to work and sent you home if you weren’t, you would be fine with that, because your failure to wear the garment was an infringement on your employer’s religious freedom.
Let’s not even get into what you would put up with if your employer was a devout Muslim. I’m sure you’d be able to type through the screen on your burkha, right?
Rafer Janders
@makewi:
On the one hand the cost of contraceptive prescriptions without insurance is in the $20-$50 a month range, so not exactly a bank breaker.
It must be nice not to have to worry about shelling out $600 a year. Tens of millions of Americans don’t, unfortunately, have that luxury, since the average annual median wage in this country is about $26,000 a year pre-tax.
makewi
@Mnemosyne:
No one is forcing you to do anything. Your employer not giving you free things is not, and never will be the same as them not allowing you to buy them on your own. There is a small part of your brain that understands that, but there is a much bigger part of your politics that is getting in the way.
gex
Rich white women of the right kind will continue to get birth control and safe abortions so they’re all honey badgers.
Rafer Janders
Health insurance is not the employer “giving” you things — it’s part of agreed-upon compensation, just like cash wages. You provide labor, and in exchange the employer provides compensation in the form of salary and benefits. If an employer withholds part of those previously-agreed on benefits without making the cost up in some other way, he is cheating the employee of the cost of their labor.
makewi
@Rafer Janders:
It is nice. I agree. I don’t have a problem with employers voluntarily providing contraceptive or abortifacient coverage for employees. I do have a problem with the federal government stating that they must, especially in the case where this imposition is in the face of religious organizations long held moral beliefs.
So now were down to a number quite a bit less than 10’s of millions yes? But then, you just use the highest end number and the largest possible pool to try to strengthen what is a shit argument. Which is that the government has a right to tell Churches that they must pay for these things.
gex
And listen, if these women had any respect for women’s issues, they wouldn’t be fucking conservatives in the first place. They already hate themselves, not just other women..
Rafer Janders
Conservatives are currently engaged in a desperate scramble to persuade the ill-informed that health benefits are somehow a “free gift” by employers to employees, out of the goodness of their hearts, rather than compensation (as if employers just willingly hand out free goodies worth tens of thousands of dollars to employees for nothing). Mark this and push back with the truth whenever you encounter it.
makewi
@Rafer Janders:
So it’s the employers choice what they agree to give and they employees choice of whether to accept the position based on what is being offered. I agree.
So were back to the government mandating what must be offered and you pretending the argument is about something else.
TooManyJens
@makewi: I’ve asked a lot of people this question and nobody has answered it yet, but maybe you will be the first. If there were some kind of special money that could be used to buy anything except contraception, would it be a violation of religious institutions’ First Amendment rights to require all employers to pay in standard money?
Mnemosyne
@makewi:
Health insurance is not some free gift that my employer “gives” me out of the goodness of his heart. It’s part of my compensation package and is paid for using money that would otherwise go towards my salary.
So, basically, by dictating what I can and can’t get healthcare for, my employer is withholding part of my salary and keeping it for himself. At an absolute minimum, he should put that money back into my paycheck as salary since he promised to use it towards my healthcare when I was hired.
makewi
@TooManyJens:
No. Now I’ll be interested to see how you tie that in to what is actually occurring.
TooManyJens
@makewi: Health insurance that someone earns as part of their employment compensation package is theirs, not the employer’s. If an institution’s religious freedom does not extend to allowing them to tell the employee that she can’t use her salary to pay for contraception, why should it extend to telling the employee that she can’t use her insurance benefit to pay for contraception? Yes, the money to pay the premium is coming from the employer, but so is the money to pay her salary. As far as I can tell, the difference is that religious institutions have been able to restrict the way that employees use their insurance benefits in a way that they have not been able to restrict the way that employees use their salaries, but as you agreed with the “special money” example, the ability to do something does not make it a right.
makewi
@Mnemosyne:
No, and I must say how much I love the fact that you are pretending to not understand this.
Mnemosyne
@makewi:
Nope. There are already lots of rules in place governing what employers can and can’t offer as compensation. The only thing this rule does is level the playing field so the insurance offered is the same for everyone and not subject to the employer’s whims.
Again, you seem to be operating from the assumption that insurance is somehow something the employer “gives” you out of the goodness of their hearts, so they can pick and choose what goes into it like any gift. But that’s like saying that employers “choose” to pay minimum wage out of the goodness of their hearts and should be allowed to decide who gets minimum wage and who doesn’t based on their moral beliefs.
If the Catholic hospitals don’t want to provide health insurance that includes contraceptive coverage, they can cancel it, pay the $2,000 per person fine to the feds, and have all of their employees go to the exchanges to buy their own coverage. But they don’t want to do that, because they want the moral thrill of dictating their religious beliefs to people who are under their power and don’t have any other choice.
TooManyJens
@Mnemosyne: Maybe the “compromise” should be that if employers have a religious objection to offering insurance that covers contraception (or HIV treatment, or blood transfusions, or psychiatric treatment, or whatever the case may be), then they should be required to pay all the money that they would otherwise spend on health insurance premiums to the employee as salary, so the employee could buy their own damn health insurance on the exchanges. (Assuming they could afford to, but that’s supposed to be what the exchanges are for, right?)
We should get employers out of health insurance anyway. The system we have is fucking stupid.
makewi
@TooManyJens:
I think perhaps you just don’t understand how health insurance works. So, I’ll help. An employer buys a package of coverage for the employee. What is in that package is agreed upon by the employer and the health insurance provider. The argument here is that Obama is stating that the package must include contraceptive coverage for religious organizations or that the health insurance company must then pay for that coverage themselves out of pocket.
I do find it sort of delightful how hard you guys try to arrange different words in a desperate attempt to make believe that the debate is about some other thing.
Mnemosyne
@makewi:
Sweetie, you’re the one who thinks that your employer is giving you a free gift of health insurance out of the kindness of his heart rather than using part of your salary to pay for the insurance.
Someone here isn’t understanding how health insurance and other compensation actually works, but it ain’t me.
Rafer Janders
So now were down to a number quite a bit less than 10’s of millions yes?
No, we’re not at all down to a number less than tens of millions. The GOP’s proposed law would allow ANY employer to refuse to provide coverage of any sort that they objected to for any reason that could somehow be passed off as ethically based — that’s basically any private sector employer in the country.
TooManyJens
@makewi: No shit, Sherlock. But if the employer is using their religious beliefs to determine what should or should not be in that package (as opposed to cost considerations, which are unavoidable), then they are interfering with the employee’s right to use their own religious and/or moral judgment to determine how they should use HER employment compensation. It’s no different than if they paid her with the special “no birth control” money.
The right seems to think that the only people with religious freedom are the employers.
ruemara
I know at least 2 Republicans. 1 gave up on them after voting for Bush 2x because she just didn’t like Kerry. But she’s slid back and now does not like Obama because she’s surrounded herself with wingnut yahoos via the FB. Probably, she won’t be voting for president or sanity may prevail again. The other was conservative about her money and loved some pretty tax cuts. She won’t be voting for any of these “lunatics” and that was before this exploded.
Rafer Janders
must include contraceptive coverage for religious organizations
These aren’t “religious organizations” — these are employers running ordinary businesses such as hospitals, schools, etc. that have some religious affiliation. But they aren’t religious organizations in themselves — these aren’t churches or temples or mosques, and the employees are not ministers, priests, nuns, etc., but simply ordinary employees, quite often not even of the same (or any) religion as the employer.
In fact, in most cases it was the churches, etc. that set these companies up as separate companies, outside of the ambit of the religious body, in order to shield themselves from liability. They wanted them to be treated as ordinary businesses — except now in this one instance they don’t.
But hey, if St. Barnabas Hospital is really part of the Catholic Church, then any paient at St. Barnabas should be able to sue the Catholic Churc, and not just the hospital itself, for malpractice committed at St. Barnabas, shouldn’t they?
TooManyJens
Apparently I’m shit at using consistent pronouns when I’m annoyed. The above should read “then they are interfering with the employee’s right to use her own religious and/or moral judgment to determine how she should use HER employment compensation.”
Mnemosyne
@makewi:
Oh, honey, no. No, that’s not how it works.
What’s happening is that the playing field is being leveled so every employer doesn’t have to negotiate every little thing separately with the insurance company. A basic package is going to be offered by the insurers to every employer, who can then add additional coverage like chiropractic if they like. For the most part, employers are liking this, because it means they’re not going to get nickeled-and-dimed every year when they re-negotiate.
The argument here is that the Catholic Church is trying to say that they should be allowed to cherry-pick from that basic package and eliminate birth control because they think birth control is naughty. Since that would destroy the usefulness of having the same basic package offered by every employer, the administration said no.
Your complaint is that the Catholic Church is not being allowed to impose its religious beliefs on its employees. So, again, my question to you is, do you see any limits on the religious beliefs that your employer can insist that you follow as a condition of employment? Do individuals have any freedom of religion in the workplace, or is freedom of religion reserved for institutions and individuals have to follow what their employer directs?
The Other Bob
@Chris:
This is one reason why I am against vote by mail or internet without the option of a polling place that preserves the secret ballot.
makewi
@Mnemosyne:
No, and now were back to the beginning – which is only right since it is the actual debate – which is that the Catholic Church has a first amendment protection to not being forced to provide contraception. You can try to disagree with it, but you will have a hard time against the current court ruling that forcing them to pay for this meets a “compelling state interest”. Because, and here we are back to the beginning again, that compelling interest amounts to saving a small group of women $20-$50 a month.
I’d actually love to see Obama try to make that argument to the USSC. He seems to know better, but for some reason you yet don’t.
Rafer Janders
the Catholic Church has a first amendment protection to not being forced to provide contraception.
Again, you insist on conflating “the Catholic Church” with businesses that have some Catholic affiliation, but are not themselves part of the church. Fordham University, Georgetown, St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, etc. are not “the Catholic Church.” They are ordinary businesses, just like any other, which employ tens of thousands of Catholics and non-Catholics alike to provide non-religious goods and services. The Jewish heart surgeon at St. Joseph’s is not providing a Catholic religious service when she performs a heart transplant.
And, again, it was the Catholic Church which wanted it this way. It very deliberately spun these off as separate businesses in order to shield the Church from liability.
TooManyJens
@makewi: They are not “being forced to provide contraception”. They do not have to prescribe or sell it. Compensating employees with an insurance package that can be used to acquire contraception is no more directly “providing contraception” than is compensating employees with money that can be used to acquire contraception. In both cases, the responsibility for the horrible, horrible sin of using birth control rests with the employee.
Also, the “compelling state interest” is in ensuring that everyone has access to at least a minimum package of preventive care in their health insurance. Which is pretty damn compelling actually.
SRW1
@makewi:
Honey, you do understand that your first two sentences can not be understood in any other way as that religious freedom is a question of money!
You serious?
TooManyJens
Does the Catholic Church cut off institutions like Catholic hospitals or colleges if they do include contraception coverage in their insurance policies (as some do)? I’m not really sure to what extent the Catholic hierarchy officially has anything to do with these institutions or what cutting them off would constitute, but I’m curious.
Patricia Kayden
If 98% of women use birth control, wouldn’t that include Republican women?
I don’t really know any Republican women personally, so I cannot say how they feel about what’s going on with their political menfolk.
Rafer Janders
@Mnemosyne:
If the Catholic hospitals don’t want to provide health insurance that includes contraceptive coverage, they can cancel it, pay the $2,000 per person fine to the feds, and have all of their employees go to the exchanges to buy their own coverage. But they don’t want to do that, because they want the moral thrill of dictating their religious beliefs to people who are under their power and don’t have any other choice.
Also, too, they know they wouldn’t be able to attract any more talented doctors and nurses, who if they had any option at all would no longer take positions at Catholic-affiliated hospitals if they knew they had to purchase their own insurance. So these hospitals know that at any time they could stop offering insurance if it really offended their moral principles — but they don’t. Why? For business reasons.
Something tells me that if a business reason trumps your moral principle, well, then as I said above, it’s not really a principle — it’s merely a preference.
hieropants
No, the co-pays cost $20-$50 per packet. Without insurance it’s closer to $100. So this preventative care rule saves a large group of women $20-$50 a month – something that’s incredibly important if you’re living from paycheck to paycheck – and a smaller, but not insignificant, group of women $100 a month.
This ruling enables sexually active women who can’t afford additional kids a more effective way to prevent pregnancy, saving the rest of us a lot of money that would otherwise have been used for abortions, maternity care, and pediatric care. It’s a win for pretty much everyone.
Mnemosyne
@makewi:
So I was correct: you think that institutions have religious freedom, but not individuals, so therefore you think there’s no problem with religious institutions forcing their beliefs on their employees. In your world, individuals do not have freedom of religion, only groups. So, therefore, it’s no problem if hospitals force their employees to follow specific religious beliefs because only the hospital has freedom of religion, not the employee.
You never answered my questions about whether or not you think the employer’s right to impose their religion on the employee has any limits since you’ve already decided that an employer can dictate what healthcare an employee can get based on the employer’s religious beliefs. Can a Jewish employer demand that all of his male employees be circumcised? Can a Muslim refuse to hire women because having men and women mix in the workplace is against his religion?
Is there any circumstance that you can see where the employee’s freedom of religion would trump the employer’s, or does the employer always have the right to dictate religion to his employees?
cckids
@Rafer Janders:
This. This is the crux of the whole issue. These hospitals, etc. are using the laws of the USA when it is advantageous to them, but want to have the ability to ignore them when their “conscience” interferes. Fuck that. All in, baby. Either pay or play.
Maus
@makewi:
Holy shit. You are seriously beyond retarded.
No, seriously. You have no clue what you are saying. The words coming out of your mouth are ungrounded in reality.
Go fuck off somewhere until you know what exactly “health insurance” is, and what the difference between a “secular corporation” and “religious organization” is.
Monala
Many have pointed out that it’s cheaper for insurance companies to pay for BC than for pregnancies or abortion, but here’s a question I haven’t heard anyone raise: What about the administrative costs of creating tailor-made policies for individual employers?
Yes, currently employers do decide upon the insurance policies they offer their employees, but they choose from a limited selection of pre-determined policies. (And usually those don’t differ in the types of things they cover, but only in the percentage of coverage; e.g, this one covers certain types of care 100% but has a higher deductible, while that one has a lower deductible but only covers those things 80%).
Won’t having to tailor policies to the employers’ moral or religious sensibilities create an administrative nightmare for the insurance companies? Wouldn’t they also oppose it on those grounds?
Monala
Not only is health insurance part of compensation, but most employees today are paying a significant percentage, if not the lion’s share, of their premiums directly from their own paychecks.
Bobby Thomson
@makewi: So, are you a dumbass or a liar?
You haven’t updated your talking points. Under the new compromise, the employer doesn’t give jack shit. The insurance company does – and the employer invoking the conscience exemption can’t be forced to pay any more for the insurance than any other employer. What we’re fighting about is whether the employer can force the insurance company not to cover medical treatment, even when the employer isn’t paying for it.
My guess is that you already knew that and are a lying sack of shit.
Marlene
I think the religious liberty issue should also apply to mormons. Why did they have to give up polygamy in order to become a state?
Why shouldn’t muslims be able to practice sharia law? I mean that does not give them religious liberty.
After all, if this is such a issue for the catholic bishops then why shouldn’t other religions get their right to religious liberty?
Waynski
@RossInDetroit: An excellent point. And thinking I was guilty of.
FormerSwingVoter
@makewi: Heh. It’s like you practice being wrong.
I get it – you believe that my boss gets to withhold medical treatment from me as long as they make up a reason. That’s nice. It’s just that your position reveals you to be a genuinely horrible human being, lacking in any ability to look at other people as having the same basic, fundamental rights that you enjoy on a daily basis.
You are completely without worth. You are a terrible human being. I can only pray that shortly after your birth, your parents killed themselves out of shame before bringing more creatures like you into this world.
ImJohnGalt
How is this any different than having “Death Panels”? Only in this instance, the Death Panel sits behind your boss’s door and decides who gets what treatment?
FormerSwingVoter
@ImJohnGalt: I can understand your confusion, so let me clarify what the differences are.
If the government makes these decisions, they will do so based upon what will give them the best chances of re-election. If an employer makes these decisions, it will be based on what will increase profits by the most.
So, basically, conservatives are in favor of anything which reduces the actual freedoms of actual workers in the actual real world.
Someguy
Well, if the Catholics were smart enough to take it to court they probably have a pretty good case to get at least this requirement overturned under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. The burden would be on the Government to show that making employers provide contraceptives is a compelling interest (I can see that pretty easily) and also that this is the least intrusive means of achieving it. I don’t think HHS wins here because, although I haven’t bought female contraceptives, I suspect there are other plausible ways to get contraceptives to women that don’t require church affiliated employers to pay for them. But you’ll notice you aren’t hearing any discussion of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That’s because the churchies and republicans are insane and don’t care about the laws that may *actually* apply, and “First Amendment!” makes a better soundbite that “Riff-Rah”. So let ’em go with their First Amendment claim. They lose that one under the Employment Division v. Smith case, BTW…
Rafer Janders
@Rafer Janders:
And, just to reiterate my point, consider Frank Spaziani. Spaziana is head coach of the Eagles, the Boston College football team. Boston College is a Jesuit school.
But would anyone say that Frank Spaziani is employed by the Catholic Church? Does the Catholic Church pay Spaziani’s salary? Nonsense. Boston College is his boss. And the federal government has authority to regulate the employment benefits that Boston College provides its employees, just as they do for Boston University and Brandeis and Harvard and MIT.
Rafer Janders
@Someguy:
The burden would be on the Government to show that making employers provide contraceptives is a compelling interest (I can see that pretty easily) and also that this is the least intrusive means of achieving it.
*sigh* Once again, employers do not provide contraceptives. Any more than employers provide heart transplants or dialysis machines or a Vairga [deliberately misspelled due to moderation]. It’s the insurance companies that provide the cost of the contraceptives.
Soonergrunt
Triggered moderation anyway. Cleared it for you.
FlipYrWhig
@Rafer Janders: And in these cases we’re also talking about the BC football coach’s dependents. So the Catholic bishops want to say that it offends their conscience, oops, I mean violates their religious liberty, if the BC football coach hires an assistant whose daughter gets the pill by prescription, because that all takes place with Catholic money the bishops get to steer only to their liking. And if the Blunt bill passed, then the same would be true if that coach were hired by an NFL team if its owner converted to Catholicism. That’s nonsense. We don’t define “religious liberty” in this way where it rides along with the employer’s money all the way to the employees’ dependents standing before the cash register.
Rafer Janders
@Soonergrunt:
Appreciate it!
Maus
@ImJohnGalt: “this is moral and that ain’t”
Conservatives don’t give a shit about oppressing, they piss themselves with anger when they’re prevented from oppressing others.
kuvasz
I can only assume that you neither date, work with or deal with Republican women on a regular basis, because the answer to your titled question would, to a woman be “I’ve got mine, fuck you.”
Someguy
@Rafer Janders:
Oh, they’d just have to pay for it, not provide it.
Well, I guess that disposes of the RFRA claim pretty neatly. Fuck dude, you should be a lawyer. There’s no way that a court would ever equate requiring somebody to pay for something, with requiring them to provide it… That’d be like equating speech with money or something…
Johannes
They probably lose under RFRA, too because not every generally applicable law which incidentally burdens religious belief is subject to a compelling state interest test; it must substantially burden religious belief, and how the burden being placed on the insurance company (not on the religious-affiliated entity, which is itself competing in a secular marketplace) does so is far from clear. Even if it did, the interest in providing universal health care is pretty compelling, and the means are pretty narrowly tailored to minimize infringement on the practice of religious belief.
IrishGirl
@biz5th: Absolutely, it’s a classic “red herring” argument.
sigyn
@makewi: You can try to argue about a compelling state interest to save women $20-$50 a month, but most people will see it for what it is.
I don’t need to. The state’s compelling interest here
isshould be insuring that an entire class of citizens (women) is not discriminated against by having standard health care decisions dictated by whatever psycho/sexual/religious conniption their employer happens to be having at the moment.Rafer Janders
@Someguy:
It does dispose of the objection, actually. And since Johannes summarized it so eloquently, no need for me to reiterate how it does so, other than to note that the religiously-affiliated business entity (and again, not a religious institution itself) is only being asked to pay a lump sum to the insurance company. How the insurance company then distributes that money is an entirely separate matter.